Zak Brown denies destroying evidence in McLaren case against Alex Palou

McLaren Racing boss Zak Brown has denied destroying evidence in relation to his team’s legal case against IndyCar star Alex Palou.

The four-time champion reneged on his agreement to drive for McLaren’s IndyCar outfit from 2024, leading the team to claim $20.7m (£15.43m) in damages from Palou and his associated management companies, who dispute the level of damages.

Brown returned to the stand at the High Court for a second day of giving evidence and was confronted with a series of WhatsApp messages, submitted at the last minute by Palou’s legal team, just before the Wednesday afternoon session.

They featured former McLaren IndyCar team manager Gavin Ward telling a contact that McLaren used WhatsApp’s disappearing messages function, which deletes conversations after a set period, to “Cover their ass on lawsuits”.

The court was also shown an exchange where Brown tells recipients to use the encrypted messaging platform in August 2023, just before Palou’s decision to remain with the Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR) team becomes public. The message from Brown also tells team members to delete the exchanges.

Brown was once again cross-examined by Palou’s barrister Nick De Marco KC, following a series of testy exchanges the previous day.

Screenshots from Ward’s phone were shown to the court dated August 3, 2023; just days before Palou’s intention to remain with CGR emerged. At the time, there were strong rumours that Palou would breach the McLaren contract.

One message from Lauren Gaudion, vice president of marketing and communications for McLaren’s IndyCar team, refers to a document with an entry password of “Palou”.

The next post is from Brown instructing his team to keep all communications on the subject to WhatsApp, and to “delete” all messages relating to it once they had been sent.

“You said that because you were keen to destroy evidence related to Palou because you knew he would breach the contract,” exclaimed De Marco.

Earlier in the case, Brown had been questioned over his use of WhatsApp’s disappearing messages. He was said to have switched on the function in a chat involving Ward after being ordered to preserve evidence related to Palou.

Brown replied that he had followed company policy in using the feature and that it sometimes deactivated unexpectedly. “Sometimes it turns itself off… it can happen inadvertently,” he said, adding that he complied with the order to preserve evidence in the case.

On Wednesday, De Marco returned to the subject: “You have destroyed evidence in this case. You’ve turned on disappearing messages when instructed not to do so, because you were worried what the consequences might be.

“After the lawyers told you not to put on delete messages, you continued to do so and told your staff to do so.”

De Marco further questioned Brown “Is this related to the case?”

“Looks like it – I don’t have it,” the McLaren boss replied.

“You don’t have it because you told everyone to destroy it!” retorted De Marco.

Further screenshots of a conversation between Ward and Canadian journalist Jeff Pappone were shown by the defence, relating to Ward’s exit from the team in November 2024.

“Oh man turning off McLaren’s 7-day disappearing messages feels truly liberating,” he writes. When the recipient asks why that was required, he said it was to “Cover their ass on lawsuits. Talk about a red flag.”

Brown was asked by his own representative if he had turned on disappearing messages to “cover our asses”.

“No,” Brown replied.

The case continues.